Truth and Love
by wxlegs
Summary: HPTR Slash. Post OOP. NonHBP compliant. Finally free from the title of 'Savior', Harry does one more thing before leaving to live his own life.  Embracing the truth and living for himself. Nonforgiving Harry. Creepy Dumbles. Dark Not evil LV.
1. The Capture

AN: Harry Potter is not mine, nor are the characters, the setting the enviroment. It all belongs to Rowling.

Chapter 1: The Capture

The castle was magnificent. It had turrets and towers and all kinds of medieval defensive fortifications added onto it. Had the visitor not known that those defenses were more than cosmetic, he would have stopped to admire the ominous beauty of the building in the cool evening hours. As it was he swiftly crossed the threshold an mentally prepared himself for what was to come.

The shadow paused as he began to shift through the inner set of wards. The outer wards had been navigated about an hour ago, an ingenious set of complicated layers woven over each other, created to make life horrible for whatever wizard, muggle, or magical creature was stupid enough to attempt a crossing. Another set of migrating wards moved casually throughout the grounds sneaking up on intruders and giving chills to anyone wandering within its range of influence, those took some intricate dodging and mental begging skills to pass. That combined with the inner wards that promised a painful death to anyone with out the passkey, made this castle one of the most heavily warded and protected buildings in this part of the world.

The shadow moved past the inner wards slowly trying not to trigger the alarms, if his quarry had even the slightest warning it could take months before he was able return and leave his gift. Fortunately, the thought of moving the location of the base would most likely be shot down immediately. The sheer amount of money involved, both in creating the castle and buying the island, would put a stop to any immediate evacuation plans. It takes a lot of time and effort to create a place like this and have it completely legit, especially, when you are trying to overthrow the current government.

The thought of actually being caught and subjected to various tortures did not phase the man. He had already been tortured many times by others. In his opinion there was little that could be done that had not already been done to him. Finally slinking through one of the upper floor windows, that some individual had thoughtfully left open, he crouched down behind a nice chair and hid from view. Happy that he did not have to force an entrance, and at the same time thinking the lord of this castle will have a fun time chastising the one who left such a thing open for the night, he used all his senses to check the room thoroughly for threats.

He slipped his hand into a hidden pocket of his dark combat pants and removed a heavily enchanted piece of parchment. Muttering the engagement phrase in parseltongue, the intruder scanned the parchment searching thoroughly for the targets.

His primary target appeared to be in his main apartments on the fourth floor pacing in his private library. Looking for any others that could cause problems, the shadow immediately found the snake wandering down in the first floor hallway. The rat did not appear to be in attendance tonight, which was a good thing. Although, he was not much of a wizard, the rat knew enough dirty tricks to be a problem. Casting a vibrating alert charm on the map in case any of the guards interspersed throughout the main floor and courtyards came within spell range, the shadow headed down two staircases in search of the Dark Lord's personal bodyguard.

Staying far enough away to prevent the vibration of his presence from alerting the animal, Harry pulled a large black rodent from his expandable pouches. Canceling the spell on the creature with a silent wave of his hand, he set the now struggling animal on the floor sending a light stinging hex to its tail.

The rat startled at feeling its painful posterior ran straight down the hallway and came face to face with the roaming monster. Swerving away at the last minute, it tried and failed to escape the unexpected presence.

Instincts awoke and the snake immediately snapped at the now scrambling rodent twisting it in her coils. She watched it dispassionately for a few moments as the morsel succumbed to the venom injected into its body. Finally, once the struggling was over and the creature almost dead, the snake unhinged her jaws and began swallowing the animal head first.

Harry seeing his work here was done for the moment slowly extracted himself from the hidden alcove he was crouched in, and he crept away on silent feet. The next objective was still far ahead and he needed to secure it quickly.

Taking another glance at the map he breathed a little easier noticing that his primary quarry was still agitated in the library. This next part of the plan would take some real close maneuvering and he was a bit on edge.

Voldemort's apartments had another set of wards attached, specifically geared to disintegrate anyone who was foolish enough to try to enter without leave. It is the reason why Nagini was searching for food down on the lower levels, the wards did not distinguish between a person, a bug, or a spying rat. This gave the leader of the Dark Side one place to have peace and quiet without irritating Death Eaters bothering him all hours of the day. Only two ways to get into the Dark Lord's rooms, one was if you had permission, and the second was if you were keyed to the wards. Unfortunately, the only ones keyed to the wards were the Dark Lord or his familiar. All others would die a long drawn out death ending with their body finally turning to ashes.

Sneaking past the wards with the ease of one who has done it before, Harry paused briefly to examine for traps and triggers before putting the plan into motion. Seeing nothing different from the other two times he snuck into here, he swiftly went to work. A number of different scenarios filtered through his mind as he placed all the items and spells. Anything could happen at this point, anything could go wrong, but he pushed it all aside in the vague hope that he was allowing his overactive imagination to get away from him. The parchment in his pocket started vibrating its warning and with a wave of his hand he finished setting the trap, silenced the paper, and hid himself completely.

Voldemort yanked open the door a few seconds later and slammed it close again. Striding purposefully over to his desk, which was partially hidden from view by the multitude of reports and papers scattered across it, he began a mental rant on the incompetence of his people. Not one to talk to himself even in a cloud of anger, he went to the hidden mini-bar behind his desk and poured himself a finger full of scotch.

Harry did a mental dance as he saw his target down the harsh liquid. His plan was coming along well, now to wait for the potion to take affect. In reality, he had spiked almost all of the well used bottles. He couldn't get them all, of course, some of them would have reacted badly with the potion and he did not want unexpected complications. The fact that Voldemort took one of the spiked bottles instead of one of the many others helped greatly in getting the plan together. He had fall back plans incase the man took something else or, Merlin forbid, did not drink anything before bed. But those plans did not work nearly as well as the simple potion in the alcohol he is currently drinking. Settling back onto his heels, Harry waited patiently. The potion was slow acting, anything faster would have had his quarry stuffing himself full of antidotes and summoning potion masters. The Dark Lord was not a fool, and he would immediately notice any form of poison, assuming that any poison would work on him at all. With his past history of drinking venom and other non-identifiable stuff in his pursuit for immortality it is a wonder if any poison would even slow him down. No, the long view has to be taken to get this done. Discovery was not an option. If that happened the plan would have to be scrapped, and he would need a hasty escape. Given how difficult it was to enter the castle in the first place _hasty_ is extremely relative. To prevent that calamity from occurring, all details had to be safely analyzed and controlled.

The Dark Lord wound his way through some paper work making annotations as he read. He flipped through reports quickly searching for the meat and ignoring the tripe. He imbibed twice more from the bottle after reading a report from his potion's master. Not understanding why he was supposed to care about mutinous teenagers who can't hold their wands properly, he made a few harsh remarks and promised a good dose of _crucio_ to the idiot who was wasting his time with prepubescent children.

He really needed a trustworthy lieutenant to deal with all this mess, he thought resentfully. The younger Malfoy was supposed to be intelligent, but he was not sure he wanted to hand so much power over to someone so young and inexperienced. Doing so would also be recognized as a weakness to most of his followers, and that is something he cannot allow. It was hard enough to get them all marching in a straight line as it was, after all they each had their own agendas and dreams. He could not allow minor issues of paperwork to distract from keeping them on the right path.

Voldemort sighed in frustration. So few of his followers had the intelligence and will to understand the true goals of the Dark Side, and that does not even delve into the issue of magical power. Most who joined only heard what they wanted to hear, or joined to allow their more dubious natures free reign. Then there are the ones who have been hurt badly by the so called 'Light' side or the MOM. A solid number of his people were wanted 'criminals' of the state. Of course only a few of those ever had a trial, the case of Sirius Black was not in a minority in magical Britain.

Finally, the potion, the reading, the annoying death eaters, and the long hard day of work overwhelmed him, and he turned away from his desk intent on completing his nightly cleaning ritual before snuggling into bed. The last thought of the night was an idle one of where his familiar got to.


	2. Deep in the Mind of Dumbles

AN: Harry Potter is not mine, nor is the characters, the setting, or the environment, it all belongs to Rowling.

Chapter 2: Deep in the Mind of Dumbles

At Hogwarts School located in a tower overlooking the lake, sat a man at a desk whom was also up to his ears in paperwork. But unlike the other, this man was ignoring the mountain of paperwork that cluttered his already messy environment. Instead, he was idly turning the pages of his sweet tooth and candy illustrated picture scrapbook or **STACI** for short. Some would find it strange that anyone would photograph and annotate different forms of candy, and then immortalize them in a photo journal, let alone naming that journal **STACI**, but those people are _not_ Albus Dumbledore.

"Let's see…Blow Pops, yes… I remember now… that would be that time in Italy with the Kenmore sisters…" His thoughts clouded slightly, while thinking back into the past briefly, "If only people knew the _real_ reason I like candy so much," he mused lightly with a strange grin on his face.

His musings were cut short by an odd whistling noise that sounded remarkably like a teapot boiling over. Looking up from one of his obsessions, he _accio'd _the instrument to his desk, while closing the scrapbook and creating a small space to examine the item.

"Well now, Harry, my boy, where have you run off to today…hmmm?" He jabbed his wand at the still screaming gadget. The sound cut off abruptly and the headmaster looked deeply at the machine, while twisting buttons here and flicking switches there. Finally, after three minutes of near silent contemplation the item spit out a small card with a rude noise and a puff of purple smoke, the headmaster handled the card and read it quickly.

_**Subject: Harry James Potter**_

_**Time of Departure: 7:34PM**_

_**Current location: Unknown**_

Dumbledore frowned briefly at the machine, "It has never failed me before…" He set the personal tracker down and rose from his desk. Striding over to bookshelves, he reached down halfway on the lower right side and flipped a hidden switch.

"Perhaps, the tracker was broken during his little temper tantrum last school year," he mumbled to himself. " That boy needs to learn to control his temper… maybe I should get Severus to teach him again, after all, adversity breeds strong men, not that I want him to succeed in learning occlumency… no … that would only allow him a chance to hide things from me."

During his external monologue, the headmaster moved quickly into the room that appeared behind the special bookcase. Striding down a short flight of stairs and into a dark musty dungeon, he wondered off into a large dusty room. The headmaster kept all of his important things here hidden away. Surprisingly, there were not many wards or traps for thieves hiding this little treasure trove, as if Dumbledore could not imagine anyone getting quite this far in an infiltration attempt. But the few alarms and wards that were sparsely positioned throughout the private room had no business being in a school full of curious children.

An old beat up stool sat in the corner with a wizard's hat on top of it with the word DUNCE written ominously in neon green lettering up its side. An innocent looking hand mirror sat on a pedestal facing down with a complicated medusa ward wound around it, and a lure to make you want to look into it. A soul painting hung on the wall waiting patiently for the next fool, who could not resist temptation. A set of cursed children's magical building blocks piled up in one corner, occasionally shifting restlessly as the last victim was still alive, hidden away in its multiple compartments. This along with other apparently random odds and bits casually strewn throughout the area were ignored by the headmaster as he alighted towards a chest in the back of the large room.

Lifting the lid to the heavily locked chest, Dumbledore sighed as he once again stared at his other obsession. This chest was home to blood samples, fingernails, hair strands, saliva, semen, and anything else he could think of that would be of use for his _Plan_. The contents were collected from people he met during his travels, people who have gone to school here, politicians, friends, family, old lovers, anyone and anything that the crafty man could steal a few vials of _something_ from without being noticed.

Oh, there were close calls, _many_ close calls, but most suspicious people were placated with a pat on the head, a full blast eye twinkle, and an explanation 'for the greater good'. The ones that did not see the 'light' were easily made to _forget_ the entire incident, sometimes fatally. Because of this, there were literally thousands of samples cataloged in this chest. He idly wondered when he would hit the ten-thousand mark and made a mental note to reach that goal before his golden boy 'graduated' next year. He snorted softly, "Like he will ever live to see a diploma from this school."

Dumbledore paused briefly to finger the vial marked _**Grindelwald**_, his most well known accomplishment, "if they only knew, "he grinned at the memory. Setting the shrunken liver down, he raised the first compartment samples up to get to the second tray underneath.

_**Potter, Harry James **_was written along a vial of blood on the slot farthest to the right. Next to it was _**Potter, James **_and _**Potter, Lily Evans**_. There were a few other Potters dutifully cataloged underneath, and for a moment Dumbledore mourned the loss of this blood sample, if he used this in the location spell, he would need to acquire another to finish off the Potter family. "Ah, well, perhaps I will just get a more remarkable organ to take its place once the boy has been dealt with," he hummed happily at the thought. It was difficult to get some of the more internal samples, and he did not have a kidney in his collection… yet. "Yes, that seems like a reasonable replacement," he decided with an odd grin on his face. "And perhaps, I could get the matching one from little Tommy Riddle…yes, that would even out everything very well, wouldn't it?"

Returning to his office after putting his amusements away, the headmaster began the preparations needed to fix his personal tracker. _I need to get a collar for that boy_, he thought viciously as the tracker started making odd noises, yet again. After several hours of tinkering, finally the tracker was cobbled back together. He was not overly worried about the current location of his boy, with _his_ fame he could not go anywhere in the Wizarding world without being mobbed or shunned. If that happened, he would expect a floo call almost immediately, in fact, he was a little disconcerted that he had not gotten one already, unless the little fool managed to get himself captured by the Dark Lord. If that happened, then the personalized portkey that he had imbedded into the back of his hand would have gone off, and would have brought the wayward child back where he belonged.

"No… he is probably off moping the loss of his dogfather, or sneaking out to Hogsmeade for pranks and fire whiskey, like all other children his age," he mused as he fused the blood sample to the tracking gadget reader. "Oddly enough, he still does not seem to be all that interested in the fairer sex. I should have Severus give him the 'Talk' soon, after all, can't have the boy blundering around creating little Potters." Finally, the instrument started to puff a few pops of white smoke signaling that it was all ready and repaired.

"Now then, where is Harry Potter," he intoned solemnly, while re-twisting a few buttons and odd screws. After a few minutes of contemplations and strange beeps the item spit out another small card with a small ding and a puff of white smoke, grasping this new card the headmaster was almost giddy with anticipation.

_**Subject: Harry James Potter**_

_**Previous Location: Hogwarts School **_

_**Current location: Not Here Now**_

Only sheer willpower prevented the small instrument from meeting the wall at an accelerated pace and splattering its mechanical remains over the expensive sixteenth century rug lying on the other side of the room.

"That should not be possible! The boy's blood should have gotten me within a hairsbreadth of a location!" Dumbledore fumed gesticulating at the whirring item on his cluttered desk.

---_Meanwhile back on an unplottable warded island in a dangerously inhabited castle_--

Harry rose from his hidden location slowly. He had waited nearly an hour after the Dark Lord had crawled into bed, both to make sure that the potion knocked him out thoroughly, and to make sure that Nagini did not come back in at the wrong time. Harry was still not sure if that cocktail he put together would put the animal down for good, or if her magical mutated nature would annul the potion, and so he waited.

Thinking that the coast was finally clear, he cast a mild light charm on the ceiling forcing his eyes to readjust for a few minutes. The magic did not wake the Dark Lord, not that he thought it would. The man could be _crucio'd_ in his sleep right now, and he would only feel a vague discomfort. A minor light charm did not have a hope in hell of waking the sleeping wizard with that potion running through his system.

Pulling out his map, Harry scanned it for dangers, specifically, large venomous snakelike dangers, and found Nagini, almost immediately, immobile in a small garden on the second floor. _She is either asleep or dead…_he thought to himself and couldn't honestly care which. Restoring the alarm charm on the map he closed it and hid it back into his pockets.

Taking a moment to observe the Dark Lord sleeping, Harry visually scanned his nemesis for the first time in almost a year. He was still bald, his nose was practically non-existent, he was pretty tall over six feet; his features were a combination of human, snake, and some other unidentifiable creature. If he did not know better, he would think he was looking at the starring role of one of the old muggle vampire movies. _At least he has put a little more meat on his bones, _Harry thought charitably, _though he would still be considered somewhat emaciated_.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, Harry pulled out a small trunk from his back pocket. He enlarged it with a word and unlocked it with a prick of his finger and a password. _First things first, _Harry pulled out a small gunlike item, the design he 'borrowed' from one of the London hospitals, highly modified. This item would inject medicine into a patient; it was currently modified to work with various potions. Who needs to swallow vile concoctions, when you can inject them, mutter a small healing charm and with a wave of the wand be done with the matter? Harry would rather have a small burst of non-existent pain that easily can be healed, and then be forced to ingest some of the more dubious combinations of potions that are out there. Harry remembers vividly eating crickets, spiders, grasshoppers, and all manner of creepy crawly things, during his younger years, when Petunia refused to feed him, but there are _some_ limits on the disgust-o-meter even _he_ will try not to go over; hence the potion injector.

Switching a vial of clear fluid into the injector, Harry walked over to his 'patient'. Pressing the end tip to the unconscious man, he pulled the trigger. The previous potion sent the Dark Lord to a deep sleep, but the second one would make him completely immobile and in a form of stasis until it's all over. It was a permutation of the infamous _Draught of Living Death _that Snape was so fond of waxing intelligent upon.

_There, now… he won't wake up for anything I may do. _Harry thought before getting to work.

AN: Thanks going out to berkum for catching that spelling error. Have also edited the summery to warn of Dumbles creepiness.


	3. Obliviate!

AN: Harry Potter is not mine, nor is the characters, the setting, or the environment, it all belongs to Rowling.

Chapter 3: _Obliviate!_

Dumbledore strode up the steps, passed the gargoyle, and into his office. The past three hours had been extremely frustrating for the aged leader of the Light. First, the boy had gone off _Merlin_ knows where. Then, his tracker had failed spectacularly, after wasting a precious half dose of sample trying to fix to his location. Now, nobody in the school seems to have any idea where their Golden Boy has run off to.

It was the middle of the night, sunrise would be a few short hours away, and the boy was just _gone_. His friends were interrogated, teachers questioned, portraits threatened, listening charms examined, he even woke the Slytherins up and had the most vocal supports of Riddle _legilimens_ for answers, and through all that hard work and chaos _nothing _was found.

He had even sent Fawkes off to find the wayward child, and the bird came back looking extremely satisfied and full of himself. He gave the animal an angry glare watching it preen itself in the corner, thinking of all the behavior modification spells that he would like to attempt on the irritating avian. If he did not know better, he would say he was currently the victim of some insane prank.

As morning started to rise up from the eastern horizon, the headmaster decided to pull another of his ace's from his sleeve. He did not want to do this, as he would prefer to keep it for a more useful time, such as, when the boy finally defeats Riddle, but knowing that it was a renewable resource put some sugar in his backbone, and he wondered over to the cabinet that he kept all his important pensieve memories in.

"This is it," he pulled out a journal, ink and quill set. Using a complicated ritual that he was able to perform from long practice, Dumbledore set the quill to the journal and cast the return sigil. The rune glowed golden into the book for a moment before turning black.

Unbeknownst to the wily warlock, in a strange place not far away, a whistle started to go off as soon as the ritual had begun. This whistle triggered another two spells and far below Hogwarts, in a closed off room, in a chamber that once held the remains of a giant snake, a large green rock the size of a fist started to pulse with magic. The jewel began gathering magic slowly from the environment around it preparing to unleash the spell held within its depths.

Back in the head office, Dumbledore had finished his preparations and unleashed the final spell, designed to yank the boy back to his office from the portkey imbedded in his hand.

As the spell went off, the results of the portkey arrived in his office. The headmasters twinkling eyes widened in shock, and he pulled out his wand.

_Still on a highly warded island in a dangerously inhabited castle_

Harry looked up from the book he was idly reading as he felt the alarm on one of his plans execute its sequence. _Phase one complete _he thought to himself as a cheeky grin lit up on his face_. The world will no longer look at me as their savior. _ All in all, everything was going fairly well to plan. There was only one more thing to do before he can leave the Wizarding world behind for good, and he was currently doing it. It was going to take a good week or so, but once done, nothing would hold him back from finding a nice beach somewhere, sitting back, relaxing, and letting the world work its own problems out.

_Hope they like my pets. _

_Elsewhere approximately fifteen minutes ago _

A curious animal was idly ravaging a garden full of shiny objects, when a strange whistling sound echoed clearly over the early morning air. Scrambling happily over towards the noise, the little creature started sniffing around a set of crates filled with fruits and other strange objects. Not caring in the least about the multiple vials of _something_ that were toppled and spilled in its rummaging, the animal started tasting the fruitlike objects, which all looked incredibly yummy in its eyes.

In a matter of moments, other similar creatures started running towards the multitude of crates, seemingly guided there by the constantly whistling gadget that eluded the grasp of the now _many_ rambunctious animals. The ravenous creatures gorged themselves of the strange food for several long minutes, until all of the animals were thoroughly saturated with the various splashing liquids. Some of the more boisterous creatures started rolling happily in their new bounty, spreading more of the fluids all over their bodies.

Finally, after all of the animals had eaten at least one of the multicolored fruits or splashed with the multitude of unbreakable vials, the first animal managed to get his little paws on the whistling object. With a hook on the navel and a strange gurgling in their stomachs, all of the animals found themselves relocated to almost empty office with only the startled squawk of a disbelieving headmaster to note their arrival.

Finding themselves in a whole new world the now potion covered and eager nifflers immediately spread out to investigate this new _shiny_ place. The headmasters eyes turned to horror as some of the nifflers immediately disappeared. Others mutated a set of wings, while still more managed to grow into the size of small horses.

Dumbledore started casting furiously trying to contain the damage to his otherwise pristine office, when one of the large invisible ones knocked him over and made a bee line for the exit. Portraits were screaming nonsense as the noise woke them rudely from their sleep. One flying niffler found the screaming pieces of paint and fabric fascinating and proceeded to 'mark' his territory. Later, once the animals had all been corralled and the damage inspected, the investigators would find that this same niffler 'marked' dozens of other portraits in the same way. The people depicted in the paint would never be quite the same again.

Freedom was quickly found as one made a break for the door smashing through the wood with barely a flinch to its now largely enhanced musculature system. The window behind the desk shattered abruptly as another with odd glowing tentacles bounced its way past the enchanted glass and dropping into a freefall squealing happily the entire way to the ground. This triggered the 'Great Escape', as soon, all the newly transported magically enhanced nifflers piled out quickly searching for more fun and shiny objects trampling the headmaster in their wake.

Down in the depths of the Chamber of Secrets, the green stone finally finished gathering the required amount of magical energy and with a barely perceptible twitch it triggered the long held spell within. The wave generated from this item, and the havoc it would cause, would later become one of the most controversial subjects of the war, to be talked about for years to come. Some would come to consider it one of Harry Potter's greatest feats of magic and admire him for the accomplishment, while others would curse his name for eternity.

Like a ripple in a pond, the magic continued spreading up and out, as it traveled away from its source. Touching every sentient mind along its path, the wave continued unabated as it launched outwards from deep in the bowels of Hogwarts. Later, a pattern would emerge; from those who were affected the most, to those who barely felt a flicker of power rush over them. That is one truth that would not be fully understood for years to come, however.

_The ministry-London_

An unknown detector on a cluttered shelf started screaming wildly, warning all who heard it that a powerful wave of magic was heading towards them. Designed as a first warning system in case of long range attack magic, the instrument had long been collecting dust in an unoccupied office for over a hundred years. Unfortunately, over the years few understood what the item did, and the ones who did understand did not know how to affectively utilize it. So like many things made for a great purpose, it was forgotten and ignored.

On level three, the obliviation squad on duty was roused from their early morning nap rudely and alerted to a strange magical phenomena near Hogwarts. Gathering their supplies they sent a message to Auror Headquarters to inform them of a possible attack on Hogwarts, when the magical wave hit them.

A few disorientating minutes later the team of crack obliviators sent an all alert thinking that the ministry was currently under attack. This snowballed nicely until everyone who was anyone, and a few who were just there for decoration, soon arrived to work in full battle robes and gear. The ministry wide alert would stay into effect for the next three days as mountains of paperwork was generated to explain the 'wave phenomena' as it was now being called. Later, it would be renamed 'The Potter Effect', but that would be some years into the future from now.

_Hogwarts_

In his office, Dumbledore had been knocked unconscious by means unknown. Waking up into the world and staring in disbelief at the ravaged remains of his office, the headmaster started doing damage control.

It was now well above sunrise, the ministry had called to complain about some curious magical wave that seemed to emanate from this location, the students were all disorientated and confused, the staff was trying and mostly failing to contain the damage from a dozen super-powered nifflers that _somehow_ made their way into his school, and he could not understand why he felt he was forgetting something incredibly important.

After six more hours of one crisis falling on top of another, the headmaster sat at his usual seat in the Great Hall and prepared to talk to the young impressionable minds in front of him.

"I know the day has been exhausting for all of you, but if I could have your attention for a moment, there are a few announcements I'd like to make," the headmaster smiled his grandfatherly smile as the students quieted down listening intently. "The prank with the nifflers that was pulled this morning was unfortunate and reprehensible, and I ask that those responsible turn themselves in to their head of house. Also, we appear to have a missing student, from Gryffindor, a Mr. Harry Potter, if anyone knows the current location of Mr. Potter and/or why he is missing, I ask you to inform a teacher immediately."

The headmaster paused briefly to assess his audience, "lastly, the ministry will be having a small team of investigators sent to determine the strange magic wave that occurred this morning, please help them in anyway that you can, and try to stay out of their way as much as possible." The headmaster sat down again and poured himself a glass of juice idly wondering why the name 'Potter' sounded familiar and vaguely important.

"Potter? Who's Harry Potter?" Lavender Brown asked scrunching her nose cutely, while thinking of all the Gryffindors she had met.

"I dunno probably some firsty," Ron Weasley answered without a care, as he reached for the plate of roast beef.

"Well, I hope they find him soon, I don't want to lose too many points because of a wayward firsty," Dean Thomas said absently, filling his plate," that was some cool invisible nifflers this morning though; who do you think pranked the school?"

"I know. We are almost in the lead for the house cup now, it would suck getting put into last place after all that hard work," Seamus Finnigan added giggling, "I don't know who did it this morning, did you see that one niffler that had some sort of spider climb charm on it, I swear it took Snape an hour trying to hex it down off the ceiling."

Ron snorted, "I heard the divination tower is a complete loss after one of the invisible ones managed to go after the crystal balls with some kind of mutated saliva that melts through glass. The bug in the tower's been bawling her eyes out all morning, drinking, and staggering around screaming about evil spirits."

"Forget that, remember that other one that was belching fire every few minutes? I wonder how it got into greenhouse two?" Parvati snickered, "guess we won't be having lessons in _there_ anytime soon."

"I can't _believe_ you people! Don't you realize how much havoc those things caused? Madame Pince is furious; one of the enlarged nifflers knocked down and demolished _four_ aisles in the main part of the library. Then it rolled around in the wreckage, tearing, and ruining all kinds of priceless books!" Hermione said incensed at the desecration of the knowledge, "and somehow the creature managed to become covered in mud that resists all magical means of removal. The stench in the library alone is enough to knock you off your feet!"

"Fawkes and Peeves were sure having fun though, it was hilarious, they played monkey in the middle with that one niffler, when that creature rammed into the trophy room case, I thought I was going to die laughing," Ginny countered with a grin on her face, "I did not even _recognize_ some of the curse words Filch was yelling; I had to look them up."

The rest of the hall was bounding with many rumors, and the various exploits of the now captured cute and cuddly demons, but most did not even spend two seconds wondering over the disappearance of a certain Harry James Potter, Gryffindor Sixth Year.

AN: This is not a superpower Harry fic. He does have a few advantages over some of his enemies, but he will not turn into an all powerful, all seeing, godlike individual able to destroy cities with a thoughtless wave of his hand. I am trying to portray an intelligent Harry that actually thinks before he acts, and uses his strengths to greatest effect. In this case pranking _is_ a strength; after all he had to learn _something_ from Sirius, and I find it hard to believe that he would not get some kind of revenge.


End file.
